Fred is a savant, and though I don't always agree with him, I find him an excellent dose of reality that provides a contrast with the fake part (getting increasingly larger) of American Suburbia.

My advice is to get a big glass of wine or a large tumbler of Irish Whiskey, set yourself in front of the internet - and enjoy his many columns. He's off base about Bush, and too conscious of 'race', but fundamentally right about most everything. The definition of Extreme Wisdom.

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Recent Favorites:

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The United States is not the country it thinks it is. It moves fast toward a curious comfortable despotism. This is of course precisely what people want. A few observations:

America does not have a free press. The media are big business and speak for those who own big business. They lie and distort and always have. Now, however, they all lie and distort identically; here is the rub. Their function is to herd the sheep. The public knows only what it is allowed to know, except for the tiny few who go to the internet. “Political correctness” is not an annoying fad. It is a deadly serious means of preventing public discussion of things that those in power do not want discussed (for example, race, affirmative action, illegal immigration.)

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A curious phenomenon, of uncertain provenance though I have heard many theories, is the national promotion of psychic weakness as a virtue. Some of it surpasses parody. I see that teachers are eliminating red pencils for grading papers because the violence of the color might shock the sensibilities of the students. There is much of this. Presumably the effect, and perhaps the intention, is a cowering race of pitiable and self-pitying weaklings unable to withstand, well, much of anything. A red pencil, for example. Dreadful things, those pencils.

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"Psychic Weakness". What a wonderful description of the public education curricula these days. A nation of parents concerned about "red marks on paper" and the effect it might have on the 98 neuron weaklings they are breeding (malforming would be a better word - given that the entire human essence screams out against this foul ideology).

Are you a parent who would worry about your child's feeeeeeeeeeelings upon seeing a red mark on their paper? If so, I berate you mercilessly. You are a fool & an idiot. Your children should be taken from you due to "abuse."

A child beater does less harm.

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Sorry for the rant, but these people are destroying a perfectly good civilization by destroying the inborn strength of their own children. I despise them.

The 13 checks identified by the Daily Southtown, which date back to 1997, were prepared with only initials in the payee line rather than the university's full name. The checks were endorsed by Purdue University, where Jane Ryan graduated last year; Illinois Wesleyan University, where Rosemary Ryan graduated in 2001; and Illinois State University, where records show Annie Katherine Ryan is currently a student.

The Daily Southtown traced all three names to Supt. Thomas Ryan's address on Narcissus Lane in Orland Park.

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Bruno's comment:

Narcissus Lane? Funny how these things all clarify themselves. This man isn't only a Narcissist - he's a pig & a moron. The truly frightening thing is that there are probably people in his district who defend him.

This is a great TechCentral post. It makes the case that the "monopoly status" of the MSM (mainstream media) is at an end.

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Excerpt:

Not any more. As UPI columnist Jim Bennett notes, what is going on with journalism today is akin to what happened to the Church during the Reformation. Thanks to a technological revolution (movable type then, the Internet and talk radio now), power once concentrated in the hands of a few has been redistributed into the hands of the many.

Since then, an army of Davids has delivered blow after blow to the media goliaths: From the debunking of "the brutal Afghan winter" to Jayson Blair, RatherGate, and more, bloggers and stand-alone Internet journalists have repeatedly shown up Big Media bias, laziness, and ineptitude.

When the Schiavo polls came out showing that the principled Republican position was 'unpopular,' I started to smell a rat.

If their position truly was unpopular, the Dems would have made MUCH more hay out of it. It appears that they are laying the ground work to attempt using the issue in the next election cycle.

They do so at their peril. The polls are faked, and I'm sure their allies in the press told them as much. Frankly, they will just energize the Republican Base.

Now, Powerline ( VERY GOOD BLOG) has done research on the the latest polls that supposedly look "bad" for Republicans. For my part, I think the big polling outfits are doing even more of their slanting than they used to. I think they are skewing and tinkering with the questions and the sampling to achieve a desired result.

Here is what Powerline came up with.

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This morning's ABC News/Washington Post poll is getting a lot of press, with its apparently bad news for Republicans. The Post itself headlines its story "Filibuster Rule Change Opposed," and begins its coverage of the poll with that issue:

As the Senate moves toward a major confrontation over judicial appointments, a strong majority of Americans oppose changing the rules to make it easier for Republican leaders to win confirmation of President Bush's court nominees, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

[B]y a 2 to 1 ratio, the public rejected easing Senate rules in a way that would make it harder for Democratic senators to prevent final action on Bush's nominees.

Sounds bad. But here is the question the pollsters asked: "Would you support or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush's judicial nominees?" That is an absurd question, to which I would probably answer "No," too. The way the question is framed, it makes it sound like a one-way street, as though the Republicans wanted to change the rules to benefit only Republican nominees. If they asked a question like, "Do you think that if a majority of Senators support confirmation of a particular nominee, that nominee should be confirmed?" the percentages would probably reverse.

Of course, the poll contains bad news for Republicans across a broad range of issues, including Social Security. Which raises, as always, the question of the poll's internals. Sure enough: they over-sampled Democrats. If you look at page 16 of the poll data, which can be downloaded from the Post's article, it discloses that 35% of the poll's respondents were Democrats, while only 28% were Republicans. Given that slightly more self-identified Republicans than Democrats voted in last November's election, this represents an egregious, seven-point over-sampling of Democrats. No wonder the poll data are bad for Republicans.

The new school board voted at a special meeting Tuesday to keep about 18 teachers in those schools, dispelling the need to shorten the day by 40 minutes.

Superintendent Robert McKanna said keeping those teachers who were scheduled to be fired would cost about $1 million, with estimated salaries for each at $50,000.

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They were lying through their teeth, and the pork hounds in District 211 probably were too. Had the tax increase passed, it would have been just one more reason to hire another 20 edu-ratchiks and dole out more end of career bonuses - which, I hasten to add, do NOTHING "for the children!"

New data from Assurant Health provides some insight, consistent with what we've seen in the past, on who is taking advantage of Health Savings Accounts:

Remember that HSA-opponents said that only the young, single, and well-off would use HSAs. That has not been the case:

73% of HSA purchasers are families with children;

35% of HSA purchasers are from households of four or more people;

57% of HSA purchasers are over age 40; and

40% of all HSA purchasers have high school or technical school training as their highest level of education.

And the argument that HSAs would just pull the "cream" out of other insurance options hasn't proven true, either. About 40 percent of those who have applied for Assurant's HSAs do not indicate any prior coverage.

Put simply, this consumer-driven option has done exactly what its proponents said it would: lower the cost of care by bringing consumers back into the loop for non-catastrophic care and, in turn, helping many who find traditional insurance too expensive find an alternative that fits them better.

This is reprinted whole from a Tony Snow e-mail that came over the transom. It was also in a recent Wall Street Journal.

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Senators Byron Dorgan, John Kerry and Richard Durbin pulled a fast one last week on their congressional colleagues. They tried to bury forever documents alleging that senior government officials tried to transform portions of the IRS and the Justice Department into a goon squad for attacking political enemies and aiding political friends.

Naturally, they didn’t declare their intentions openly. Instead, Sen. Dorgan attached an innocent looking amendment to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill that will fund government operations after September 30. The last-minute amendment read:

“At the end of the bill, add the following:

“SEC. __ . (a) None of the funds appropriated or made available in this Act or any other ACT may be used to fund the independent counsel investigation of Henry Cisneros after June 1, 2005.

“(b) Not later than July 1, 2005, the Government Accountability Office (sic) shall provide the Committee on Appropriations of each House with a detailed accounting of the costs associated with the independent counsel investigation of Henry Cisneros.”

Before detailing the sleight of hand, let’s consider the background. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh insisted on the appointment of an Independent Counsel in 1995 after learning that then-Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros shuttled payments to his mistress without reporting them to the IRS. Once the news went public, Cisneros resigned from office, his previously promising political career in tatters. He later admitted to a misdemeanor and paid a fine of $10,000. President Clinton pardoned him in 2001.

Dorgan’s bill would shut down the 10-year probe conducted by Independent Counsel David Barrett’s investigation, but it would add something unprecedented in the case of special or independent counsels: it would prevent the publication of the counsel’s report on the case. A decade’s worth of investigations — sworn testimony, documentation of alleged abuses, grand-jury proceedings, etc. — would vanish without a trace.

In this instance, that would mean burying charges that key officials in the Justice Department and the IRS abused their power by going easy on Cisneros and targeting political opponents of Bill Clinton. Those charges — not the Cisneros case — have served as the focal point of Barrett’s investigation for the last several years. While Senator Dorgan and his colleagues may not know this, lawyers for Henry Cisneros and other Clinton-era public servants do. They also know that Barrett is the first man ever to receive grand-jury subpoena power to look at the inner workings of the IRS.

A Dorgan press release summarizes the senator’s case for quashing the report: “The Independent Counsel was appointed ten years ago, but has failed to file a report and continues to spend millions of dollars, despite the fact that the subject long ago resigned from office, pled guilty to a misdemeanor, paid a $10,000 fine, and received a presidential pardon.”

The argument has unmistakable appeal, especially since Barrett has gotten less bang for the buck than any previous independent counsel (one conviction for $20 million dollars).

Nevertheless, the claim is misleading. Barrett isn’t responsible for dragging out the investigation or adding to its cost. As the Wall Street Journal noted in an April 22 editorial, “any blame for this delay lies mainly with Mr. Cisneros’ lawyers at Williams and Connolly, who have filed more than 190 motions and appeals; one single appeal took some 18 months to deal with. The 400-page-plus report has been largely done since last August, and awaits only a requisite period for review and response by those named in its pages. The only thing threatening a hold-up past June are further defense motions seeking still more delay.”

Barrett also stands accused of wasting money, even though he has claimed in a letter to members of Congress: “This Office undergoes a complete GAO audit not once, but twice a year, to which we provide full assistance and cooperation. I have never received a complaint from the GAO. To my knowledge, the only person to whom a GAO official expressed a concern was to a Washington Post reporter for a Washington Post article on April 1, 2005. The Washington Post article was relied upon by Senator Dorgan in introducing SA 399.”

Yet, even if Barrett were profligate, wouldn’t the public have a right to know whether government officials abused the IRS and its extraordinary powers for political purposes? Why not insist on publishing the report, and conducting a GAO audit of the independent counsel, rather than singling out the counsel while burning his work?

This gets us to the heart of the issue: Senators Dorgan, Kerry and Durbin have been lured into sponsoring a cover-up of what could be a hair-raising case of governmental malfeasance. As the Journal noted, “abuse of the taxing power is about as serious as corruption can get in our democracy.”

One would assume that senators of any party not only would want to know more about allegations of this sort, but would insist on going after agents responsible for such a breach of the public trust, especially if the bad actors worked for the IRS, Justice Department or the White House. After all, once a federal agency decides to engage in political chicanery, it’s not likely to stop just because an administration changes.

Whatever abuses Barrett may have found in the Clinton era very well could persist into this administration, only with a pro-Republican tilt. Yet, the sponsors of the midnight amendment have adopted the Sgt. Shultz defense: They know nothing — and they want the American public clothed in ignorance as well. (Compare this behavior to the alacrity with which Senate Democrats have retailed unsworn, over-the-transom complaints about John Bolton.)

The Dorgan-Kerry-Durbin amendment made it past Democratic and Republican Senators because they had no idea the trio had added the cover-up language to a measure that, among other things, finances continuing military and humanitarian operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fortunately, Congress still has an opportunity to ensure that the Barrett report sees the light of day. Members of the House-Senate conference, which must produce a final version of the appropriations bill for the president’s signature, still can strip out the report-killing amendment.

I've stated (and will state again & again) that the public education system in America is fundementally corrupt. What else can you expect from a protected monopoly with access to $500 billion of "extracted profits."

Here is a study that highlights the issue by contrasting private schools attacked in the press, and the far greater abuse in the public system.

As you read the points below, you will lie to yourself and say "it isn't happening in my district." It is. It is happening everywhere. It is fundamentally corrupt - even if "legal."

Excerpt:

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While a member of the school board, a Miami-Dade landlord made more than $1 million in rent payments from a program designed to aid at-risk children. That board member was later found guilty of committing rent fraud in residential units he owned.11

• An influential lobbyist, who as of April 2002 had held fundraisers for six of Miami-Dade’s nine school board members, made millions, including $4 million on just one deal, lobbying the board on behalf of powerful clients.12

• Between 1989 and 1997 the cost of construction of a single school ballooned from its original price of $27.8 million to $75 million, and as of April 2002 the school still suffered from about $1 million in major repair problems.13

• A recent superintendent’s highest degree was a master’s from a program that required only eight four-day courses and an exam; his deputy superintendent held a Ph.D. from a “diploma mill.”14

• An internal district audit found that district purchasing was riddled by abuse and that staff often disregarded competitive- bidding requirements.15

• After the deputy superintendent for facilities management reported that millions of dollars were being wasted on shoddy construction, he was transferred to a data entry job and received no raises for five years.16

• The district’s maintenance program has become a “jobs for life” initiative, in which efforts to lay off workers—and save the district millions of dollars—have consistently been quashed by unions.17

There is virtually no "local control" in Public Education. If there were, our schools would be be much better, and certainly less expensive.

Now, there certainly is the "myth" of local control, which keeps the natives fat & happy in their belief that they actually have a say in how their local schools are run. This myth is propagated by the few instances where local citizens may have the opportunity to chime in on tiny matters of policy.

The area where local citizens have some control (at least in IL) is local tax referenda. Note that this doesn't impact curricula, hiring, contract talks, or the like. It only "limits" the increase in education taxes. As many have pointed out before, districts have many tricks (some legal & some illegal) to circumvent taxpayer wishes in this department - but that is a whole other post.

In virtually everything else, "local control" is only a thin veneer, beneath which the education bureaucracy does pretty much anything it wants.

For example, let's look at the School Board. What power does it have? Virtually none, if the goal is actually to affect change.

First, most School Boards are bought & paid for by teacher union money. When a person drops off the board, the appointment is almost always some one inside the education establishment.

The board can pick Superintendent, who supposedly "manages" the district. Superintendents are pretty much a protected class of people who have "graduated" from teaching to taxing. But all of you should know that superintendents are part of the same cabal. They have fancy doctorates, but their only solution to any district problem is to whine about a shortage of money, and set you up for a tax increase.

[As an aside: Superintendents often hire consultants to help them "sell" tax increases to the clueless voters. And who are these consultants? You guessed it! Former Superintendents! It's all one big happy pig fest, with the pigs slopping around in a dirty, steaming, smelly pile of taxpayer dollars.]

Superintendents are often hired for the sole purpose of shepherding through such a tax increase, and if they fail, they are often fired (but with great retirement packages). If fired, the School Board might spend a pretty penny on specialized "head hunter" organizations that pawn off the same pile of petty bureaucrats for a 30% (of an inflated salary) finders fee.

Superintendents do not report to the Board as much as tell the Board what they are going to do, and they are nearly always in lockstep with the teacher's unions and the state level educational establishment.

Let us take for example the increasing number of news stories about corrupt districts, corrupt boards & corrupt superintendents. This often leads to one or two 'concerned citizens' to run for the school board. They sometimes actually beat the "establishment" candidate.

If this new board member(s) make any attempt to affect a change that might lead to real reform, the Superintendent, old School Board members, and the teacher's unions will isolate the newcomer, and spout the phrase the defines the entire corrupt system.

"We can't do anything about that - it's mandated."

States mandate collective bargaining with collectivist unions.

States mandate construction codes so that new school (charters or independents) can't be built with out massive cost over runs for their connected contractors.

And who lobbied for those mandates? You Guessed Right again! School Boards (through their Associations), Teacher's Unions, and Superintendents (through their Associations).

Let me end where I began. Elections for school boards, superintendent hiring decisions, and the occasional strike are all charades designed to fool you into thinking there is such a thing as "local control" There is no such thing, as any attempt to actually test the hypothesis will prove.

There are only two ways to achieve REAL local control, and both are viewed as "radical" by the herd of soccer mom (and their emasculated husbands)

One way is to do what you would/could if you were in the Amityville Horror - !!GET OUT!! of the public system!!

The second is to wait for school choice (or help bring it about MAYBE!!), which is the ultimate in local control.